Over the past few years I’ve tried to dramatically reduce the amount of money I spend at Christmas while upping the quality of the gifts I give. This has of course meant some extra time being creative in the kitchen making items I hope people will enjoy more than an extra Boots or Body Shop gift set (i’m not knocking these by the way, please don’t stop buying me smelly gift sets as I count on Christmas supplies of shower gel to get me through the year).

Friends and family will be presented with hampers filled with fromage and chutney this Christmas, but last year was a much more sugary affair. On the menu were two very simple to make but delicious items, which you can make even a few days before. So, if you’ve not quite got round to buying for everyone or need some last minute ideas for gifts that look luxurious but don’t have a huge cost attached, you might want to give these a go….

Glitter choc cherry brownies

These might not look hugely exciting in the baking sheet but they taste amazing – rich, velvety and soft and the added sparkle means little ones feel like they’re eating something with added magic. If Santa is bored of cookies in your household you may want to rustle up a pan of these instead.

I always use the Borough Market Brownie recipe, to which I added a few large tablespoons of morello cherries in syrup. I added the edible red glitter in the last few minutes of baking so that it wouldn’t flake as much when wrapped. Although the recipe is quite expensive to make because all of the eggs, it does make a lot of brownies, which taste really decadent. I cut mine into squares, wrapped in foil and labelled. Most people who received brownies as gifts ate them straight away but the moistness means they’ll keep for a good few days.

Butterscotch vodka

This looks beautiful but is definitely one for people with a sweet tooth. Marvellously easy to make, you can serve this butterscotch vodka straight over ice or mix with milk (and ice cream) for a grown up milkshake. I used a mid range vodka from Waitrose, poured into kilner jars and added Werther’s Originals. How many you want to add is entirely up to you, I think I used just under a packet per litre of vodka, which gave a lovely caramel colour. Before decanting to jars make sure you give the jar a mix to reduce sediment. I used small stoppered bottles from Lakeland and some cute milk bottles with screw lids too.

To make things look a little fancy, I wrapped my gifts in cellophane and added some sparkly reindeers and other assorted Christmas sparkles to the bags and tied with some gold ribbon. Each vodka bottle also got a serving suggestion tag attached with curled gold ribbon. The finished packages looked a little something like this….

What do you think? Have you made any edible gifts this Christmas? Feel free to share any links below, I’m always on the lookout for ideas for the year ahead!